Where would horror movies be without slime? It’s the perfect go-to method for disguising effect flaws while making the audience squirm with disgust. Enter From Beyond, the movie that puts the “goo” in “goopy.” Its chief monster, the dimensionally disfigured Dr. Pretorius (Ted Sorel, Basket Case 2), almost puts John Carpenter’s Thing alien to shame with its overall shape-shifting malleability and gallons of ooze.

As if that weren’t enough, the movie as a whole is an excellent exercise in mad science, sadomasochistic inventiveness and squirrelly Jeffrey Combs-ian insanity. Combs is Crawford Tillinghast, lab assistant to Pretorius, inventor of the resonator, a device that allows all within its psychic field to perceive the myriad transdimensional beasts that surround us all the time. After Pretorius’ head is removed by something from beyond (“It bit off his head like a gingerbread man!”), Tillinghast is persuaded to restart the experiment by psychiatrist Katherine McMichaels (Barbara Crampton) and cop Bubba Brownlee (Ken Foree, 1978’s Dawn of the Dead), because science.

True to form, the resonator shows them the world lying just beyond our eyesight. It also stimulates the pineal gland, which leads to increased libido (good), a third eye protruding from a stalk on the forehead (bad), and a taste for human brains (um … good?). This leads to the classic scene where the sexually repressed Dr. McMichaels unleashes her inner goddess, dresses up in leather, and gropes an unconscious Tillinghast. Crampton never quite sells the “psychiatrist” aspect of her character — when will people learn that glasses do not a scientist make? — but she absolutely nails the sex-maniac part.

Making the most of a meager budget, director Stuart Gordon bathes his horror in a gorgeous giallo lighting scheme and buckets of ectoplasm. Famed for his previous H.P. Lovecraft adaptation, Re-Animator (which also starred both Combs and Crampton), From Beyond is the stronger film, completely unafraid to delve into utterly depraved areas. Combs is reliably strange and wonderful; Foree plays the Ken Foree role to the hilt; Crampton goes places few actors would let themselves go; and the makeup artists, working with practically no money, rose to the challenge with inventive prosthetics and copious gore.

And, of course, slime. By the end, as Tillinghast and Pretorious wage a mucus-bathed battle that literally turns each of them inside out, From Beyond makes a compelling case for itself as the slimiest movie ever. —Corey Redekop

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In 1921 London, Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall, The Town) keeps busy in her work, exposing so-called “spirit mediums” for the greedy charlatans they are. It’s not only a living, but a distraction from emotional wounds not yet healed.

Implored to do so by the stammering, handsome history master of Rookford (Dominic West, Punisher: War Zone), Florence travels to the boys’ prep school, where students have reported seeing a gh-gh-gh-ghost! While our skeptic heroine is inclined to approach the situation with disbelief, one boy literally became frightened to death. Suffice to say, the Rookford faculty takes the haunting — whether real, imagined or an elaborate hoax — rather seriously.

The Awakening unfolds in a purposely calculated manner that matches the supernatural literature of its setting’s post-Victorian era. Some call that boring; I call it a slow ratcheting of suspense, and the lovely, headstrong Hall serves as a terrific guide through the good ol’ ghost story.

Directed and co-written by feature first-timer Nick Murphy, the visually rich film does suffer from a needlessly extended ending, so it lacks the payoff of 2012’s The Woman in Black, which The Awakening closely resembles in theme, mood, production design and basic overall Britishness. It’s not quite as simple as its stick-figure credits would suggest; speaking through Florence, Murphy and co-scripter Stephen Volk (the BBC’s infamous Ghostwatch special) tackle head-on the fear-vs.-science debate that sadly, inexplicably remains relevant even today. —Rod Lott

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